Steamboat Springs – After surviving eight nights in the backcountry with a broken leg, Charles Horton, soaked and shivering from a drenching spring snow, heard rescuers’ snowmobiles buzzing nearby.
A short distance away, one of Horton’s acquaintances on the Routt County Search and Rescue team, Hugh Newton, had inadvertently driven his machine off the packed track, burying it up to the windshield.
When Newton called two teammates back to help him, Horton – who was at that point so dehydrated that he couldn’t even yell – summoned his strength to blow one more time on his emergency whistle.
“If we hadn’t heard that, we might not have found him,” Newton said. “The outcome might have been far different.”
It took a lot of backcountry skill for Horton, 55, to survive his ordeal near Chapman Reservoir. But it took even more luck for him to be found Monday morning, frostbitten and hypothermic but alive.
“All of us are blown away, finding him the way we found him,” Newton said. “I still get shivers thinking about it.”
At the Yampa Valley Medical Center in Steamboat Springs, emergency room doctor David Cionni immediately began warming Horton and hooking him to IVs to help with hydration. Then he diagnosed the severe break of the tibia suffered when Horton fell on his skis, in addition to an unexplained rib fracture and minor frostbite on his toes.
“It basically has been mushed straight down. Both weight-bearing portions of his knee were injured,” said Dr. Michael Sisk, an orthopedic surgeon, during a hospital news conference. “The femur (thigh bone) was basically a battering ram that caused his tibial plateau to fracture. … This is a very significant injury to this knee.”
Horton was scheduled to undergo surgery Tuesday, but doctors postponed the procedure for a day after discovering that he had become anemic, perhaps the result of his injury compounded by his dehydration.
They nonetheless marveled at his resilience.
“I think a lot of people in that situation would not have had a chance of making it. Eight days in the woods at this time of year is a long time, and unless you know what you’re doing, it would be tough,” Sisk said.
A part-time ballroom dance instructor, Horton asked that he be back on his feet as quickly as possible, although doctors suggested he would be on crutches for at least a couple of months, followed by a lengthy rehabilitation. At some point, he probably will need to have knee-replacement surgery, Sisk said.
“I think with Charles, he’ll be back to doing everything,” Sisk said. “Whether it’s with his own knee or an artificial one remains to be seen.”
While rescuers and other experienced backcountry travelers were careful not to fault Horton, they acknowledged that his only real mistake was not telling someone where he was going and when he would be back.
Todd Fellows, an employee at the venerable Ski Haus outdoor equipment store in Steamboat Springs, lauded Horton for keeping his wits about him and being adequately prepared for an emergency, even while intending to be out for only one day.
“Could I have stayed out for nine days like that? Standing right here, I’d say no,” Fellows said. “However, I bet if you ask that guy a week ago if he could survive nine days, he’d say no, too. Still, the sort of killer instinct sets in, and you either do or you die.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
